Love, though it is not chill and cold, <br />But burning like eternal fire, <br />Is yet not of approaches bold, <br />Which gay dramatic tastes admire. <br />Oh timid love, more fond than free, <br />In daring song is ill pourtrayed, <br />Where, as in war, the devotee <br />By valour wins each captive maid;-- <br /> <br />Where hearts are prest to hearts in glee, <br />As they could tell each other's mind; <br />Where ruby lips are kissed as free, <br />As flowers are by the summer wind. <br />No! gentle love, that timid dream, <br />With hopes and fears at foil and play, <br />Works like a skiff against the stream, <br />And thinking most finds least to say. <br /> <br />It lives in blushes and in sighs, <br />In hopes for which no words are found; <br />Thoughts dare not speak but in the eyes, <br />The tongue is left without a sound. <br />The pert and forward things that dare <br />Their talk in every maiden's ear, <br />Feel no more than their shadows there-- <br />Mere things of form, with nought of fear. <br /> <br />True passion, that so burns to plead, <br />Is timid as the dove's disguise; <br />Tis for the murder-aiming gleed <br />To dart at every thing that flies. <br />True love, it is no daring bird, <br />But like the little timid wren, <br />That in the new-leaved thorns of spring <br />Shrinks farther from the sight of men. <br /> <br />The idol of his musing mind, <br />The worship of his lonely hour, <br />Love woos her in the summer wind, <br />And tells her name to every flower; <br />But in her sight, no open word <br />Escapes, his fondness to declare; <br />The sighs by beauty's magic stirred <br />Are all that speak his passion there.<br /><br />John Clare<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/love-1817/
